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Education A La Carte

Education A La Carte: Choosing the Best Schooling Options for Your Child by Dr. Kevin Leman discusses how to choose the best education for your family while factoring in you and your child’s unique needs. The book would be best suited for families who are unsure of the best educational options for their children and are looking for a resource that also analyzes a parent’s role in schooling, homework, and educational success.

The book is heavily influenced by the theory that birth order strongly affects personality; after all, Leman is the author of the popular 1982 book, The Birth Order Book: Why You Are The Way You Are. Consequently, in Education A La Carte, he makes sweeping generalizing about birth order, such as, “Middleborns will always go in the exact opposite direction of the firstborn.” If you are not a big fan of being told how your birth order may predict the type of student that you are, as well as the type of parenting style you may have when it comes to education, then you might want to skip over those sections of the book.

I do like how Leman demonstrates that different families have different needs for their children’s education. For some children, public or private school might be the best option, whereas others may thrive more in a home school environment. The book nicely discusses schooling options that some people may not even immediately think about, such as charter schools and vocational schools.